wirelessguru1 Wrote:

> > This is a return to the 19th century
> Spencerian concept of "survival of the fittest"
> > that led to the colonial excesses we have
> seen.
>
> So, it is not the survival of the fittest any
> more!?
>
> Fascinating!!!

Of course it's not "survival of the fittest" any more..... in most parts of the world it hasn't been since the late Upper Paleolithic or thereabouts.

Our average brain size has decreased.

Looking around me, I can't help suspect that our psychological stability has decreased.

The genetic load (frequency of deleterious alleles) on our species has increased, due to the existance of "society" and "technology" allowing the survival of Darwinian "unfit" organisms. People that would have died young a few thousand years ago are now surviving & reproducing instead.

Hell, we provide welfare & disability benefits to highly unfit individuals.... who then use this leisure & guaranteed meal ticket to reproduce at a disproportionately high level.... while world class athletes & scientists & the like are often "too busy" to reproduce at all, or at anything other than a disproportionately low level.

Read the papers..... alcoholics get liver transplants, paid for by public funds or absorbed by hospitals & passed on to paying patients. Indigents use emergency room services as first aid ("doctor, I have a sore throat" "or a sore back"), again, cost paid by the more productive members of society (who often "can't afford" to have as many kids as the indigents do!). Careless idiots who lose legs trying to hop trains get free medical treatment & public assistance. Idiots who start wildfires (by careless "accident", or trying to signal help after being lost for a few hours) that burn tens of thousands of acres of land..... including Old Growth forest!....and destroy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of houses and property..... and kill other people..... who are "punished" with a slap on the wrist jail sentance & fines that do nothing to recoup even a fraction of damages. Runaway brides who cost $60,000+ in search fees.... which they don't repay..... and are then given million dollar book deals.

Nope, unless we get hit with a MAJOR pandemic, asteroid strike, WWIII, or societal/industrial collapese, we aren't going to see much "natural selection" at work any time soon. Till then, it's "survival of the "fit enought" and the "most parasitic".... with the advantage going to the most parasitic.

Kenuchelover-the-cynic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2005 12:34PM by kenuchelover.